12/20 I want to learn to input Chinese characters. What is the best
thing to learn, pinyin, jhooyin, romanization, etc? It's so
complicated when you have MPS2, Sin Wenz, Hanyu pinyin, Tongyong
pinyin, etc. When I was little I learned jhooyin but it seems
like it's becoming out of flavor.
\_ I'd recommend pinyin input. It matches the english typing skills
you already have.
\_ if you use Windows, my recommendation is actually get one of
those pen-input board. Nothing is more natural than writing the
character down. Otherwise, I recommend Han-Yu pinyin method. It
is by far most logical phonetic methods, and it doesn't require
specialized keyboard for it. Mind you that due to large number
of homophonetic characters, phonetic method tend to be slow.
\_ What software do you use with the pen-input board? The
built-in one has an unresizable square that you need to write
the character in.
\_ I urge you get one of those boards from the vendor and use
its software. Microsoft's built-in hand-writing software is
not quite there yet
\_ Which vendor? Can you recommend a set?
\_ I use PenPower with a 5x4 tablet for my church
work. It has several options in terms of writing
area. I actually prefer the unresizable box
(transparent with outline) even though it gets
in the way often, rather annoyingly. Another
option is where you can write anywhere on the
screen, but sometimes it gets confused (or it
gets me confused) in terms of whether you are
trying to write or clicking the mouse, etc.
Overall I am reasonably satisfied, but I
haven't tried any other systems, so can't
compare for you. I think typing is much faster
if you are willing to train, and of course you
don't need to carry a board around.
They sell the PenPower systems at:
http://www.asiazest.com - yet another poster
\_ I think it's interesting that the sensors in the
hardware everyone mentions are in the pad, not the
writting impliment. It seems to me that a brush
with sensors in the two ends might be a more elegant
solution, especially since you could use real ink
and make nicer looking characters on the hardcopy.
Just a thought.
\_ Thanks! I also found out that I can indeed resize
the Windows Chinese handwriting IME by dragging on
the right side of the character box. |
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